The present invention relates to voice and business transaction reporting systems for telephone call centers.
In the past, telephone call centers have been provided with two major systems, an Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) and a business data system comprising a host computer. The call centers use ACD-generated call statistics to govern the operation on a day-to-day basis. This information tells the administrative staff how well the calls are being answered, and generally how well the staff that is answering the phones are performing. However, these ACD reports concentrate on the elements of the voice call only, and are oblivious to the elements of the business transaction that is logged on the business data system. It is this data system that records and reports the customer sale, reservation, or complaint, etc. and resulting benefit. Because two disparate systems are used for business management, with each providing detail on their respective pieces of the transaction with the customer, a significant blind spot exits that can lead the call center manager to make erroneous decisions to the detriment of the business.
The ACD generated information is typically available in real-time and summarized in 15 to 30 minute time periods. The information from the data system is usually batched and available on a daily basis, well after the time that the business was transacted. As a result, call centers use the ACD information as the driver to customer satisfaction, as it provides the best granularity and is available as quickly as technically possible.
This approach to managing the business based on call information may be likened to an air traffic controller managing many airplanes coming into an airport from information generated by two separate systems: one provides data on the plane's distance from the airport, and one provides data on the altitude of the airplane. Suppose that only the distance data was available in real-time and altitude information comes in a report received the next day. It would be virtually impossible to avoid catastrophe if these were the only tools available, yet call centers are managed minute-to-minute using call data which is only one-half of the necessary data required to make accurate decisions.